Mātauranga Māori will propel Pāpāmoa school kids’ science learning (in te reo) and give lift-off to NZ’s space policy

Buzz from the Beehive

Two ministerial press statements today draw attention to the Government’s incorporation of  mātauranga Māori in its science policies and programmes.

One of these announced the launch of the national space policy, which will oblige our space boffins to bring indigenous knowledge into their considerations.

The national policy document tells us:

• As part of informing diverse space policies and sector development initiatives, the New Zealand government will engage mātauranga Māori expertise.

And

• Mātauranga Māori and space are deeply connected, with space representing whakapapa (genealogical links to the beginning of the universe), wairuatanga (the spiritual connection between Earth and the universe, derived from Māori cosmology), and tātai arorangi (Māori knowledge of astronomy). The New Zealand government encourages inclusive collaborations with individuals or groups who are currently underrepresented in the space sector (including but not limited to Māori) and for these collaborations to work toward sustainable outcomes. The New Zealand government will also strive to further understand and assess representation across the space sector, to best direct inclusive collaboration opportunities.

Another statement released today tells us a school will  be built in Pāpāmoa for kids who will be taught in te reo about science, engineering, mathematics and what-have-you.

Govt will spend $400m on schools and classrooms – but Hipkins and Tinetti should be bothered by the quality of the curriculum, too

Buzz from the Beehive

It looks like there were a couple of stragglers, when ministers of the  Crown were mustered to unleash a bundle of pre-Budget press statements under an embargo that was lifted at 10.30am yesterday.

Later in the day, another press release related to the clean-up of damage done by Cyclone Gabrielle was released. It came from Forestry Minister Peeni Henare, who announced $10.15 million from Budget 2023 would be appropriated to clean up of slash and debris in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay and for slash management traps to contain debris from entering waterways in the first place.

This morning the PM and Education Minister Jan Tinetti brought news of Budget 2023 investing $300 million to build 300 new classrooms (“$200 million for permanent roll growth, and $100 million to address shorter term pressures on school rolls”). An additional $100 million will enable the construction of up to four new schools and new school expansions.

What kids will be taught in those classrooms and the worth of the qualifications they gain from their schooling should be worthy of the government’s interest, too.

St Cuthbert’s College in Auckland has informed parents that next year’s Year 11 students would not take part in NCEA Level 1 but rather work towards the school’s own bespoke Year 11 Diploma.

The reported reason:  the school has so little confidence in the new NCEA Level 1 curriculum it is ditching the qualification in favour of its own Year 11 diploma next year.

Budget 2023 sluice-gates are opened – $1bn will flow into cyclone recovery

Buzz from the Beehive

 Whoa there. Did Budget Day arrive several days earlier than Point of Order had been led to believe?

Five press statements from the Beehive landed in our email this morning, embargoed for release at 10.30 am.

The PM led the charge, announcing a billion-dollar flood and cyclone recovery package as part of Budget 2023 that covers the basics of rebuilding roads, rail and schools while preparing for future events with a big investment in flood protection measures.

Here’s how the dosh is being distributed.

Mahuta scolds Russia (and mentions democracy) in foreign affairs speech while PM extends commitment to helping Ukraine

Buzz from the Beehive

Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta has covered a raft of portfolio issues in a speech she delivered to….

Sorry, but we don’t know.  The speech notes posted on the Government’s official website tell us neither where or to whom she was speaking.

There were no clues in the headline (Why the Pacific way matters for regional security) nor in the introductory paragraph:

I want to set out – Aotearoa NZs Independent Foreign Policy and Why the Pacific Matters for Regional Security. Indeed much of the emphasis in foreign policy has been the impact of Russia’s unlawful aggression in Ukraine, tensions in the Indo-Pacific, North Korea’s provocations, internal conflict in Sudan alongside ongoing unrest across other parts of the world, increasing economic pressures and the real impacts of global warming. We are indeed living in complex times with greater geostrategic tensions.

 But it’s a fair bet she did not deliver her speech in Moscow, because – if she did – there’s a fair chance she might not be allowed to come home.  Vladimir Putin is apt to react harshly to criticism and Mahuta told her audience:

To see Russia’s cynical exploitation of its veto to stymie the UN Security Council is an affront to the rules-based order.

ELE LUDEMANN: Education is in crisis – and now the govt is planning to promote gender activism in schools

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There is much amiss with the country’s  school system – and with government plans for change.

• • • Regular student attendance – defined by the Ministry of Education as students being at school 90% of the time during the survey period – dropped to 6% during term 4 last year.  – Stuff.
    • Figures released under the Official Information Act to Newstalk ZB show nearly 10,000 5 to 13-year-olds were not enrolled in the official school system as of 2022 – a significant jump from slightly more than 6300 reported in the year before. The 58 per cent increase is the highest number reported in the last five years. – NZ Herald
    • Everything from the curriculum to teacher training and the NCEA system needs to be overhauled if we want to solve New Zealand’s “education crisis”, according to a new report, Save Our Schools: Solutions for New Zealand’s Education Crisis.  The report from the NZ Initiative says the current curriculum is knowledge-poor, does not provide teachers with enough guidance and focuses on “key competencies” which are learned innately, rather than the teaching of academic knowledge. – NZ Herald

At Homepaddock today, Ele Ludemann highlights another concern.  She writes –

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Govt pushing gender activism on schools

Did you know that the Education and Workforce select committee is considering the Education and Training Amendment Act (3)?

And did you know that it includes this requirement for appointments to school boards?

• updating the criteria for co-opting and appointing board members to reflect today’s school communities, by adding the genders, sexualities and sexes of the school’s students and of the school community, and disabled students at the school and the school’s disability community. 

Buried beneath avalanche of new laws and bills there’s news from the Cyclone Taskforce (a month after it got terms of reference)

Buzz from the Beehive

Whoa, there – we can’t keep up!  Suddenly, the PM’s ministerial team has unleashed a slew of press statements.

Sixteen announcements have been posted on the Beehive website since our last check.

This burst of activity (we wondered) might be the result of them responding positively to having a team member red-carded.

We refer, of course, to Stuart Nash, who happens to have been named in one of the new announcements:

Review into Stuart Nash’s communications with donors

The Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Secretary to conduct a review into communications between Stuart Nash and his donors.

That was yesterday’s news and has generated plenty of headlines in the mainstream media as questions are raised around Nash’s serial breaking of Cabinet rules.

Public posts and the code of conduct: two former Labour MPs are brought into the spotlight

Buzz from the Beehive

It’s been educative, noting who is in and who is out when it comes to public service big-wigs keeping or losing their jobs when they breach rules which call for them to be politically impartial

Former Labour MPs have done better than Rob Campbell, who was sacked as chair of Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand and the Environmental Protection Authority.

• Steve Maharey will keep his jobs as chairman of ACC, Pharmac and Education NZ, after the PM was advised that Maharey’s political commentary breached the rules for political impartiality, “but at the lower end of the spectrum”.
• Longtime Labour MP and former party president Ruth Dyson, deputy chairperson of the EQC and Fire and Emergency, has admitted she hadn’t read the rules saying public service board members should act with political impartiality. She has been questioned about a tweet which criticised National’s Christopher Luxon. At time of writing, she still had her jobs.

The fate of Maharey was aired in a statement from the Prime Minister posted on The Beehive website.

Govt has dived into Covid-19 recovery funds to help build aquatic centre that – gosh! – may bring world champs to Hastings

Buzz from the Beehive 

Tourism Minister Stuart Nash has been busy in the past 24 hours, joining the PM for the opening of a new aquatic centre, enthusing about data from the latest visitor statistics and announcing a new industry strategy.

The Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities Priyanca Radhakrishnan was in the business of announcing strategies, too.  She welcomed the Ministry for Ethnic Communities’ release of its first strategy, setting out the actions it will take over the next few years to achieve better wellbeing outcomes for ethnic communities.

In the Education domain, Associate Minister Jan Tinetti was chuffed about the success of the programme for providing “free” period products in schools, while fellow Associate Minister Aupito William Sio announced the recipients of the Tulī Takes Flight scholarships. These were a key part of last year’s Dawn Raids apology.

Rwanda travel plans for UK deportees are stymied but Prince Charles is headed there – and Nanaia Mahuta is going, too

Buzz from the Beehive

Rwanda is back in the headlines, not only for the role it is playing in the British Government’s  highly controversial plans for ridding their country of asylum seekers (the first deportation flight was cancelled after a last-minute intervention by the European Court of Human Rights, which decided there was “a real risk of irreversible harm’’ to the asylum seekers involved).

The Central African country is also embroiled in a dispute with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, each country accusing the other of firing rockets across their shared border.

According to Al Jazeera,

“This seems to have been triggered by fighting between the M23 rebel group and state forces in the country’s east.

“Both Congo and the United Nations have accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 movement.”

No abusive responses to this post, please, but shouldn’t the interests of Seniors be looked after by a more mature Minister?

Buzz from the Beehive

Efforts to buttress New Zealand’s relationships with our South Pacific neighbours are reflected in two announcements from the Beehive.  Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she had a warm and productive meeting with Samoa’ Prime Minister, Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa, in Wellington yesterday and Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta said tomorrow she will welcome Penny Wong on her first official visit to New Zealand as Australia’s Foreign Minister.

The Prime Ministers issued a Joint Statement acknowledging “strong cooperation” on COVID-19 and vaccines, a commitment to work together to navigate post-pandemic economic challenges, the importance of regional unity, and the pre-eminent role of existing regional architecture, such as the Pacific Island Forum.

They also agreed to strengthen cooperation on climate change.

Mahuta echoed this, saying she looked forward to talking to the new Foreign Minister on Australia’s climate change agenda and further ways of assisting Pacific Island nations on mitigation and adaptation measures.